Introduction

This guidebook is directed towards emergency managers. It is meant to help educate emergency managers around the best practices and technologies available for conducting the various types of damage assessments that need to be completed following a natural disaster. The content is targeted towards helping local, county, state and federal emergency responders to conduct damage assessments in fast order.

The goal of any damage assessment is to assess the level of damage to a community, so informed decisions can be made by responders and emergency managers. If a damage assessment is carried out correctly, it can drastically increase the efficiency of the both the response and recovery phases of a disaster. It is my opinion, the modern PDA processes currently take longer then it needs to take and this guidebook is meant to shorten the time it takes to complete a damage assessment. The process and technologies can be used in any type of disaster - Earthquake, Tornado, Flood, Fire or Hurricane. The process and technology has been deployed on dozens of deployments and it works. Depending on the size of the event, a PDA can usually be completed accurately within 24 hours. I know, I've done it many times by myself and with a team of analyst following tornadoes, floods, fires and hurricanes.

For a little background, I had the joy of serving at FEMA in multiple geospatial roles, for four and half years. Starting as a Geospatial Analyst for Region 9 on a local forest fire event and ending as a Geospatial Coordinator for Region 7.

In Trenton, NJ, briefing senior staff responding to Super Storm Sandy

For those of you reading this immediately following a disaster the Methods of Conducting PDAs section is the most relevant post disaster. The remaining pages are meant to assist emergency responders during a steady state phase prepare for the next damage assessment.

Duplication of Efforts

In writing this guide, it is my hope to help reduce the amount of duplication of effort that is widespread throughout the emergency management field. Currently there is massive unintentional duplication of efforts following each event with regards to damage assessments. Each organization and agency responding to an event is tasked with providing assistance to those in need, so each tries to find out where to best send personnel and allocate resources. This often results in multiple groups conducting similar or the same damage assessments. There are deeper causes behind this issue, which I address later.

The different entities that currently conduct some type of damage assessments following an event can include: Urban Search & Rescue (US&R), the County Emergency Management Dept., the State Emergency Management Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Weather Service (NWS), Red Cross, Small Business Administration, Contractors, and even citizen volunteer groups.

Faster Assistance

After every disaster, everyone involved in the response, both governmental and non-governmental organization needs answers on where the help is needed most. Resources and personnel need to be deployed but no one has a map of where and how much help is required. Damage assessments are key to answering these questions. An accurate map of damage levels can help empower accurate decision making. For example, which residents, business, and public utilities needs assistance and how much? Where should the recovery centers be setup to assist the public in applying for assistant (aka Disaster Recovery Centers)? Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams (DSATs) teams are almost always deployed into communities with little to no knowledge of where to go or how to prioritize their efforts.

If emergency managers could use this guide to educate themselves during a steady state, and prepare the technology before an event, it could result in a drastic reduction in wasteful staff time and millions of dollars for each disaster. This document outlines how emergency managers can take advantage of low cost, rapidly deploy-able tools following a natural disaster of any size. While the tools outlined here can be used around the world, it often references resources available within the United States.